Baghdad, May 9, (VOI)-The Iraqi parliament unanimously agreed on Wednesday to file a lawsuit against al-Jazeera television for allegedly giving offence to Iraqi religious leaders.

At the beginning of the parliamentary session held on Wednesday, presided over by House Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Iraqi parliamentarians condemned the attack that they said the Qatari al-Jazeera satellite channel launched on top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when it said "he was appointed by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq."

"Al-Sistani is fruitful tree. He has a long and well-known history," al-Mashhadani said in the session attended by a correspondent for the independent news agency Voice of Iraq (VOI).

MP Khalaf al-Alyan from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) called for taking "strict" measures against the channel, noting, "All religious clerics in Iraq are sacred and their sanctity should not be violated." Meanwhile, MP Mahdi al-Hafiz from the secular Iraqi National Slate accused the channel of igniting sectarian sedition. "The falsehoods we heard are unacceptable and we must put an end to them," al-Hafiz added. The IAF, led by Adnan al-Dulaimi, is the third largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, with 44 seats out of 275, whereas the Iraqi National Slate, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, has 25 seats.

On Friday, dozens of Najaf local residents staged a demonstration protesting a program aired by al-Jazeera satellite television last Wednesday, considered as an offense against top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

On Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari urged in a message the Qatari government to intervene to stop what he called "al-Jazeera news channel's campaign against the government and people of Iraq."

What more could reflect the media and legal dimensions of modern warfare than The Hill’s report of a Pelosi threat to sue Bush over Iraq bill on the same day that the Iraqi parliament agrees to sue al-Jazeera TV. But it begs the question of who’s acting for which side.

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